Announcement of the new design from Bill Joy, head scientist at Sun Microsystems, is not scheduled until August 16th at a Stanford University technical conference, but Sun is already telling people that the idea behind the chip is "the most important semiconductor architecture of the next 20 years." MORE >>
New Java Chip Set to Challenge Intel
The idea of parallel processing -- that a bunch of
OK computers cooperating together should be
much faster than one great computer working
alone -- is not new. But then again, neither was
the idea of small "applet" programs that blur the
line between dormant data and executable
applications. Now the man who invented Java, a
programming language for writing applets, is about
to unleash another brainstorm -- a single chip that
incorporates parallel processing at the level of the
microprocessor.